Northampton Town skipper Langmead ready for ‘13 cup finals’

Northampton Town Cobblers V Rochdale'Kelvin langmead.

Jefferson Lake

Kelvin Langmead admits it is an awful cliche but that the Cobblers need to treat their remaining 13 matches like cup finals.

Town entertain two of npower League Two’s struggling sides in back-to-back home fixtures in the next five days.

Plymouth Argyle, who are 22nd in the division and only outside on the relegation zone by virtue of a better goal difference than Accrington and Wimbledon, go to Sixfields on Saturday (3pm kick-off).

Tuesday night sees the visit of a Bristol Rovers side revitalised by new manager John Ward but still only six points off the drop zone.

Northampton will be favourites to win both of those games after developing one of the best home records in the Football League, and Langmead knows the team have to maintain their run at Sixfields, where the team has been beaten just once on a Saturday afternoon in more than 10 months.

“We’ve got seven home games and six away games left now and if we maintain what we’re going at home and pick up points away then we’ll be right up there,” said the Cobblers captain.

“It’s very cliched but we’ve got 13 cup finals coming up between now and the end of the season.

“We find ourselves in the position we’re in with a terrible away record and if we improve that we’re more than capable of finishing in the top three.”

The top two places in league two look like they will go to Gillingham and Port Vale, two teams who have been established front runner for the majority of the campaign.

But the race for third place, and the four play-off spots, is wide open, with three points separating third-placed Rotherham United and Exeter City in seventh.

Langmead believes the race for promotion will go all the way to the season’s final day, which this year is a week early due to Wembley hosting the UEFA Champions League final.

“It’s going to go all the way to the wire,” said Langmead, who on Saturday will look to add another 90 minutes to his record as the club’s only ever-present player this season.

“We take a lot of positives from our home performances and they give us a lot of confidence.”